


A Captain's Oath

by RosalindInPants



Series: Love and Trauma [3]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, canon gap fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: After arriving in the Iron Tower, Wolfe and Santi take a moment to grapple with the things that have just happened. A Paper and Fire canon gap fill.
Relationships: Niccolo Santi/Christopher Wolfe
Series: Love and Trauma [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1532804
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	A Captain's Oath

Wolfe was sitting in a chair. A soft chair, well padded. That was the first thing he was aware of.

“Breathe, Chris. That’s it.” Nic’s voice, speaking in a constant, soothing refrain of simple directions. A very good sign, there.

Nic was holding his hands. Not just holding them, rubbing the palms with his thumbs to the rhythm of Wolfe’s breathing. No, the opposite, he was breathing to the rhythm of Nic’s touch.

He remembered where he was, and he would have groaned if he’d had breath to spare. The Iron Tower. They were in the Iron Tower, and the terrible thing was that he found that a relief because the place they’d come from had been so much worse. He remembered that now, too.

He’d been fighting the memories all day. No surprise that the moment he let his guard down, he’d lost his mind. No surprise, but some disappointment. He’d been prepared for this. He should have been able to handle it.

To be fair to himself, he had prepared himself to walk through the prison in Rome, not the prison of his childhood. He hadn’t expected to see his mother for the first time in so many years. No, that was wrong. Not so long. She’d been there the night of his release. He’d forgotten. His skin crawled with the memory of her touch.

But Nic’s touch was more immediate, more real. He grabbed onto Nic’s hands and held tight, using his lover's hands and voice as ropes to haul himself back to the present.

He opened his eyes. They were, as he’d thought, in the plush cage of an Iron Tower guest room. Thick carpets, fine furnishings, no escapes. _Don’t think about that now. It’s a problem to be solved later._ He remembered walking into the room, but nothing after that. Nic must have helped him to the chair.

Nic knelt before him now, holding his hands and looking at him with worry he was too used to seeing. It made him weary to see that look again.

“I’m all right,” he croaked, trying for reassuring and managing only pathetic.

“Glad to hear it,” Nic said with a smile. That smile was one of Nic’s best features. Wolfe had spent the better part of twenty years admiring that smile, cataloging its variants. He knew when Nic meant it with all of his heart. And when he didn’t.

This smile was real, but there was grief behind it. A deep, painful loss that Wolfe knew was his own fault. Pulling a hand free of Nic’s grasp, Wolfe cupped his lover’s cheek. “Oh, Nic, love, I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Nic said, shaking his head. 

“I do and you know it,” Wolfe said, finding strength and will enough to sit upright. “What a selfish bastard I am, going to pieces over things long done, when you’ve just lost everything.”

Mirroring Wolfe’s gesture, Nic laid his free hand on Wolfe’s cheek and rose on his knees until they were eye to eye. “A moment’s dissociation is far from going to pieces, love. We’ve talked about this. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Nic leaned in, and Wolfe let his lover draw him forward, until first their foreheads touched, then their lips. The kiss was a soft one, warm and deeply soothing.

It made his heart ache for Nic. “I can still be sorry,” he whispered, forehead to forehead with Nic, their mouths barely parted. “You abandoned your post. Fought your own company. Gave up everything you’ve worked for.”

Nic turned away, his expression hardening. “Everything I worked for was a lie.” He stood, paced toward the narrow window, his words bitter. “I think I saw proof enough of that today. So did they. My company. Zara. If they could stand in that room and still believe they serve a just cause…”

With a shout of fury, Nic punched the wall beside the window. The loud, sudden sound of it made Wolfe flinch, but there was no damage done. The Iron Tower was built to withstand worse. 

For a long moment, Nic stood with his fist against the wall, silent. When he spoke again, the bitterness was gone, leaving a hollow ache in his words, “None of it was true. Nothing I thought I had.” His shoulders shook, and he turned. Looked at Wolfe with a storm of emotion Wolfe couldn’t fully parse. “Nothing but you, Christopher,” Nic said softly. “I have you.”

“Always,” Wolfe said past the lump in his throat.

Nic came to him, walking as straight and tall as he ever had on the High Garda parade grounds. Standing before Wolfe’s chair, he dropped to one knee, his fist over his heart in a salute, pure devotion on his face. “Christopher Wolfe,” he said, solemn as a prayer. As an oath. “I swear to serve you with body, mind, and blood for as long as it pleases you. I swear to defend you against all enemies, within and without. I swear to uphold such laws and covenants as may exist between us, and when ordered to direct and lead our little squad of outcasts in battle. I swear to protect you and those children wherever you may be threatened.”

The oath of a High Garda officer. Wolfe had stood witness when Nic gave it to his commander and the Archivist, years ago, upon his promotion to captain. And now Nic offered it to him. To him, broken and disgraced as he was. He wasn’t worthy of it.

He could do nothing but accept it. Anything else would break Nic’s heart. Meeting the intensity of Nic’s gaze with an unguarded smile, he said, “I could have no greater honor than your protection. Come here, Niccolo, my love.” He opened his arms.

With tears in his eyes, Nic came into his embrace, kissing him with the passion of a man desperate for something to hold onto when all else was lost. Wolfe knew that feeling, deep in his bones, and he kissed back with the promise that whatever came for them, his love would not fail. Nic was his, and he was Nic's. Body, mind, and blood.

Whatever else fate might take from them, it couldn’t take that.


End file.
